Brain Controlled Robot

The Neural Impulse Actuator (NIA) is a Brain-computer interface (BCI) device developed by OCZ Technology. BCI devices attempt to move away from the classic input devices like keyboard and mouse and instead read electrical activity from the head, preferably the EEG. The name Neural Impulse Actuator implies that the signals originate from some neuronal activity, however, what is actually captured is a mixture of muscle, skin and nerve activity including sympathetic and parasympathetic components that have to be summarized as biopotentials rather than pure neural signals.

The Brain Controlled Robot hopes to use the NIA to remotely control a mobile FIRST Robot. It utilizes two systems - the NIA software called "Brainfingers," which utilizes somatic EEG signals, and an open-source program called "Triathlon" which utilizes a fast artificial neural network (FANN) to associate brainwaves to their corresponding robot motion.